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History of South Kerala Diocese

The South Kerala diocese of the Church of South India is headquartered in Trivandrum(Thiruvanathapuram). It has 60 parish districts and approximately 625 parishes in this diocese. A lion’s share of the parishes and congregations under this diocese share the Christian tradition introduced in this land by the missionaries of London Mission Society (LMS). Vedamanickam Maharasan was the first Protestant convert from Travancore. Born in present day Kanyakumari District, he went to Tanjaore as a Hindu pilgrim. There, he met the LMS Missioanry William Tobias Ringeltaube, who initiated him into Christian faith. Maharasan invited Ringeltaube to his village. A center of LMS was opened near his village in Aralvaimozhi in 1806, which was later shifted to Nagercoil. The first Protestant church in Travancore was dedicated in Mylady in 1809.

The LMS missionaries worked hard for the uplift of the socially oppressed classes, education of the masses irrespective of the caste, creed or religion and to provide better health care to all. When the CSI was formed in 1947, the Churches in southern Travancore came under the South Travancore Diocese. But when Kerala was formed in 1957, Kanyakumari was handed over to Tamil Nadu. The necessity of forming a separate diocese for southern Kerala was felt. As a result, the South Kerala Diocese was formed in 1959. Rt. Rev. A.H. Legg, the then Bishop of the South Travancore Diocese, became the first Bishop of the South Kerala Diocese.